Let me give you 3 facts about me and headphones
- I use headphones everyday
- I’m active when I use them. The rest of my day is to interactive to be using headphones so if they are no good for sport then i probably won’t wear them for long.
- I love JBL headphones
With these facts out of the way you know where I’m heading. I recently bought the JBL Under Armour Sport Wireless React from a retailer here in australia. They retail for 199 but i got them and for 167 that included a 2 year extended warranty. Bargain Right? Lets see.
Recently i have reviewed some cheaper brands, and while ok they are not top of the line headphones. Getting a pair of Sport Wireless React i immediately knew I was in a different ball game. Right from the packaging to the day to day use. In the packaging you get the headphones, the carry case, usb charger, 3 sets of wing tips, 3 sets of earbuds. Plus the instructions and the usual pamphlets etc. The medium wing tips and ear buds were perfect for me and probably are designed to fit the majority yet still provide shrek size and hobbit size. These are also ipx7 water resistant and pack a 170mAh battery that boasts 9 hours, i think it’s fair to say you will get 9 hours use, i did, maybe a little more.
The tips are made from aluminium, feel sturdy and look amazing. I really like the way they look and the magnetic tips make for easy carrying round then neck whilst not in use, the controls are a soft plastic and the cord feels like fabric and doesn’t tangle at all.
Pairing was simple, hold down the power button until the small led light turns on which is 5 seconds put your phone in pairing mode and connect. It really was that simple. Once connected the controls are fairly easy to use, volume up, volume down, or hold volume up for 3 seconds to skip forwards 1 song and hold down for 3 seconds to skip back a song. The play buttons also Pauses, Answers and ends calls. You can activate the voice assistant by pressing the button on the side for 3 seconds this button can be found above the charging port.
Ambient Aware and Talk thru are 2 different modes for different situations. The first is Talk Thru which allows you to hear others clearly, yet the music is still playing softly in the background. The external sounds are picked up by a microphone and amplified for the user, this mode is turned off by pressing the button again.
The 2nd mode is activated by a double press of the same button and this and is called ambient mode and allows you to hear your surroundings. I find Talk thru mode to be more useful however while running ambient mode was useful to hear cars coming before i ran across intersections. Different scenarios will call for different use patterns.
The assistant feature works with Siri and Google assistant but not bixby but lets be honest bixby isnt compatable with a single fucking thing.
Okay let’s talk sound. They sound freaking great, These only have 2 5.8mm drivers but the JBL sound is mature and seasoned. This isn’t their first rodeo and you can tell. I honestly love running with these on and listening to music. Since getting these my audio use has changed from mostly podcasts to half podcasts/half music. The lows are especially fun and rnb and hip hop has been getting some extra airtime. But the sound is honestly fun and I believe the sound quality is proportionate across the mids lows and highs. Maximum volume is to loud like most headphones but no stupid loud. A lot of cheaper headphones get to loud past 50% volume, these are well balanced and become to loud for me around 80%. But they still sound good at the level.
To wrap up my review on the JBL UA Sport Wireless React i would say they are a real bargain for the price. There are some changes I would make.
1 Make the name smaller
2 Make the controls slightly smaller
3 USB type C
4 Knock 20 bucks of the price.
Seedubs Media 